The Shire of Murray is preparing to relax planning rules in a bid to ease pressure on its resources. Councillors voted unanimously at their April 23 meeting to release for comment new local planning policies that would exempt some developments from requiring shire approval.
Non-controversial minor works
The policies cover what a council report deemed “non-controversial” minor works, including sheds, patios, rainwater tanks, and minor additions to caravans or park homes. The exemptions would not apply in areas of high landscape value, heritage areas, or where vegetation was proposed to be removed.
A report to the council said the new policies would reduce regulatory burden and resource pressures. “The shire is receiving a significantly larger amount of development applications year on year,” it stated. Since COVID-19 this has included about 285 shed applications — of which only two were refused — and 28 water tank applications.
Reducing time and cost burdens
“Removing the need for development applications for routine, high success rate developments will reduce time and cost burdens to proponents and the shire can reallocate limited resources to more strategic projects,” the report said. The proposed policies will allow a 12m x 20m shed — which the report said was “very popular” and had been “universally” approved — to be built without shire approval. This is expected to reduce the amount of applications received by the shire by about 20.
The shire expects to lose about $5000 a year in application fees but the report said this did not fully cover its costs when assessing applications.
Support from councillors
Cr Stewart Carter said at the meeting anything the council could do to support its staff was a good thing. “In the March ordinary council meeting minutes, in addition to the carports, water tanks, and patios, 13 of the 44 application decisions relate to sheds,” he said. “Removing the need for these type of planning applications to streamline our staff’s time is a good thing.”
Shire planning and sustainability director Rod Peake said staff reviewed policy changes to make sure they were working effectively, and it could be possible to revert to the current system. Deputy shire president Ange Rogers said she welcomed any chance to cut red tape. “There’s a lot of red tape and that’s unfortunately the world that we live in,” she said. “But if we’ve got officers that can look for ways to remove that to assist our community and help our staff not to deal with things that can be dealt with in other ways, I think that’s a good thing.”
